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Vallejo leaders push near‑term safety fixes and a $31.5 million Sonoma Boulevard rebuild after rising fatalities
Summary
After reporting 12–13 traffic fatalities across consecutive years and identifying State Route 29/Sonoma Boulevard as a hot spot, Vallejo officials and Caltrans outlined a six‑mile repaving and complete‑streets project and agreed on immediate steps — prioritizing lighting, crosswalk improvements and enforcement — while the larger project moves ahead.
Vallejo public safety officials and state transportation staff on Tuesday outlined a two‑track response to a recent uptick in traffic fatalities: a long‑term Caltrans complete‑streets rebuild of Sonoma Boulevard and a set of short‑term actions the city will prioritize immediately.
Caltrans public‑affairs chief Bart Ney said the Sonoma Boulevard project will repave and reconfigure about six miles of State Route 29 from Maritime Academy Drive to Many Drive, adding elements intended to slow speeds and improve pedestrian safety, including lane reductions and road diets in sections, curb‑extension bulbouts, raised median islands, pedestrian‑scale lights, landscaping, and new bike lanes. "It's a paving project… ultimately costing $31,500,000, of which Vallejo contributed $126,000," Ney said during the subcommittee meeting.
City and county law‑enforcement representatives and traffic engineers acknowledged the project will take months to build and emphasized that it does not preclude quicker interventions. Councilmember Matias and other committee members pushed for immediate measures at identified hot spots after the meeting packet showed a cluster of fatal collisions on and near Sonoma Boulevard.
Staff and traffic‑division leaders described several near‑term actions the subcommittee asked to accelerate: prioritizing replacement or augmentation of street lighting in high‑fatality corridors; reviewing and improving crosswalk illumination and pedestrian lead time (PLT) at key intersections; deploying additional radar‑speed trailers and signage where appropriate; and coordinating targeted enforcement with the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and sheriff's teams during construction and high‑risk periods.
Lieutenant Jeremy Huff, who leads the department's traffic unit, said the division has six full‑time traffic personnel and uses motorcycle enforcement and radar trailers to reduce speeds. He also said many collisions involve pedestrians and bicyclists who enter the roadway mid‑block rather than crossing at a marked crosswalk.
Committee members asked staff to produce a prioritized list of hot spots — combining recent collision data and local knowledge from council members — and return to the subcommittee in about two months with more detailed proposals, cost estimates and any grant opportunities that might cover short‑term lighting or enforcement costs. The subcommittee also requested an aging report and clearer timelines for repairing and updating signal hardware and lighting in priority areas.
Caltrans staff said construction is already underway in places and that contractors and resident engineers will conduct daily site control; they encouraged community members to report unsafe temporary conditions to the project's public‑information officer so Caltrans can act quickly. Ney said the full project is expected to be built within roughly a year of continuous work, but acknowledged that staging and weather affect timing.
On enforcement, CHP representatives described a flexible, data‑driven deployment model and noted that Caltrans can fund additional project security and CHP presence for certain night operations. That program — sometimes referred to in project management as "COZy"/project security — was discussed as one way to concentrate enforcement in construction zones.
The subcommittee also discussed the city's broader Vision 0 effort (the local Vision Zero–style program), how it dovetails with Caltrans' work, and the potential to use Office of Traffic Safety grants for short‑term lighting or other countermeasures. The chair asked staff to coordinate with Public Works, Caltrans, CHP and community stakeholders and report back with a timeline, hot‑spot list and planned near‑term actions.
The subcommittee's immediate priorities set at the meeting — lighting in fatality hot spots, crosswalk illumination and PLT verification, deployment of radar trailers and signage, and stronger interagency coordination — are intended to reduce risk while the larger Sonoma Boulevard complete‑streets rebuild proceeds.
The subcommittee scheduled a follow‑up consideration of traffic safety and abandoned‑vehicle issues in roughly two months to review the prioritized hot‑spot list and progress on short‑term measures.
